A walk around the Possil Marsh Wildlife Reserve
Part two of a walk from Gilshochill to Possilpark & Parkhouse train stations. After Exploring Gilshochill we continued our walk by crossing Balmore Road and heading into the Possil Marsh nature reserve.
Possil Marsh is a medium sized local nature reserve with a circular path around it’s outer limit. On it’s eastern side it reaches the Forth & Clyde Canal towpath. There’s a small loch in the middle surrounded by “wild” marsh, swamp and fen areas. Looked after since 1950 as an important site for birds and rare plants it’s now in the care of the Scottish Wildlife Trust. Rudy loves exploring the path here and as he doesn’t like getting his feet wet in the marshes he sticks close by no matter what interesting smells are blowing across from the interior!
A wonderful curiosity at Possil Marsh is a large boulder about halfway along the northern path. Rather overgrown and the inscription near worn away it commemorates the first ever recorded meteorite in Scotland! The High Possil Meterorite fell more than two hundred years ago, landing not far away on the other side of the canal amongst what is now an industrial estate. The meteorite can be seen at the Hunterian Museum who have a short blog post about the meteorite.
THE HIGH POSSIL METEORITE
Near this site on 5th April 1804 fell the first recorded meteorite in Scotland. It can be seen in The Huntarian Museum, University of Glasgow.
The Glasgow Herald and Advertiser newspaper article about the meteorite mentions that one of the witnesses to the High Possil Meterorite’s fall was a dog which, “on hearing the noise, ran home, seemingly in a great fright”! The Secret Scotland website has a page including the full text of the newspaper article detailing the meteorite’s fall, which can be read here.
Possil Marsh is home to rare breeding birds from May to July so it’s important to keep dogs under control during this time even though the marshland will discourage many from leaving the paths.